


When You Loved Me

by DoreyG



Category: Julius Caesar - Shakespeare
Genre: As are sensible conversations like actual adults, Brutus keeps seeing things, Community: hc_bingo, Dubious reality, Happiness is for other people, M/M, Mentions of canon minor character death, Rejection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-09 03:13:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You used to love me once,” Cassius whispers in his ear. Late, in the middle of the night, when he’s not quite sure if it’s real or dreaming, “more than a friend, more than a <i>brother</i> - you wouldn’t have let me convince you otherwise.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Loved Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Rejection square on my HC_Bingo, because the falling apart of their relationship is almost as painful as the falling apart of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's marriage and made me clutch my heart a lot. Happens, vaguely, after Scene III, Act IV but before Act V. Takes all(/any, I don't think I used _that_ many) visual cues from the 2012 RSC production with Paterson Joseph.

“You used to love me once,” Cassius whispers in his ear. Late, in the middle of the night, when he’s not quite sure if it’s real or dreaming, “more than a friend, more than a _brother_ \- you wouldn’t have let me convince you otherwise.”

He turns his head away, as he has been doing often lately. Covers his ears and closes his eyes and hopes that everything will just _stop_ (go away, leave him be).

“You _wouldn’t_ ,” but, of course, he can never block Cassius out fully – the man is too deep, wound intimately into every part of him, “If Messala, or even _Lucius_ , had suggested such a deed you would’ve laughed in their faces. No matter how much support they provided, no matter how sincerely they believed.”

He tightens his hands anyway, squeezes his eyes until they almost _hurt_ -

“It takes a special kind of bond to convince a man to murder that which he once held most dear.”

…But the man really is too deep. Far too deep. _So_ deep that if you cut open his chest and ripped out his heart ‘Cassius’ would be imprinted there – a bloody red letter bulging with every sluggish beat.

“Do you remember our happier days, Brutus?” He’s moving now. Closer, closer still – until he can feel the mattress barely dip besides his hip, “before Caesar, before the others, before… _Everything_. Do you remember how we loved then? _Do_ you?”

‘You ask too many questions,’ he wants to say. Spit. _Scream_. Spin around on the bed and drag Cassius down and stop him remembering the days when they loved each other, _stop_ him… Before they both have to acknowledge that such days are long gone.

…But the tattoo on his heart is still too tender.

“I do,” and Cassius is already speaking again, “our first summer together. When we were barely more than boys and actually thought that we could dare to change the world. You were prettier then, with your earnest face and bright eyes. I suppose that I looked much the same as I do now.”

He manages to take a deep breath around that tenderness. Another. His fingers dig so hard into his face that he seems a second away from just ripping it off and leaving only blood and bones.

“But I loved you no less,” Cassius doesn’t stop him. Only hovers a hand over his shoulder, fingers helplessly twitching like they’ve already crossed that line, “I kissed you the first time that summer, I remember that too. You tasted of smoke, you hadn’t stopped then, and _plums_ of all things. And you said to me, you _said_ to me with a smile, ‘I will never love anybody as much as I love my Cassius. Have no fear.’”

…He digs so hard, as a result, that he can practically feel his flesh start to crumble at the edges.

“ _Have no fear_ ,” as Cassius’ hand simply continues to hover, “but I should have. For soon Caesar came along. And power. And Portia, though I didn’t mind her so much. And I saw you slipping away so swiftly that I could only grasp the dust you left in your wake.”

There’s _dust_ on his hands now, he’s sure. It almost covers the blood.

The _blood_ -

“We made love the first time that summer, too. I must remember more than I thought,” the blood staining Cassius’ hands too. Yet another thing binding them together, a rope of rotting red, “you look surprised at the term, but it’s _true_. You laid me down, on your bed, and kissed my forehead and my lips and my collarbone. And I was afraid, _so_ afraid of being so naked before another, but you smiled at me again and you stroked my thighs and you told me, ‘hush, Cassius, it’s going to be alright.’”

He barely chokes back a dry sob (choke) at it. For he didn’t _want_ the bond between them to become so perverted. He didn’t _want_ the bond. Not _once_ -

“ _Alright_ ,” but what he wants is quickly becoming obsolete. Like what Cassius wants, with his desperate eyes and hovering hand. Like both of their lives, _slowly_ ticking away, “and it _was_ alright, for a while. And then acceptable, at least. And then- Well. It wasn’t _good_ , but you were happy most of the time and so I could be happy for you. I could. I _could_ … Before I got jealous, before Caesar got too big, before everything was ruined.”

He manages one ragged breath. Another. _Another_.

“But those aren’t even the things that I remember the best,” can’t manage anything more than that. As Cassius finally realizes, and relents, and drops his hand back to his faintly shaking side, “you held me for the first time that summer. And I laid my head on your chest and you wrapped your arm around my shoulders and our hearts were so close that they beat together.”

There’s a long pause. The dust still stains his hands, the blood stains deeper than that. The utter irrelevancy of _all_ of them is printed starkly on his eyelids.

“Together,” a painful counterpoint to the tattoo still (always) beating on his heart, “that’s what I remember the best. But are we together now, Brutus? Are we? _Are_ we-?”

“You ask too many questions,” he _does_ say, staining his fingers more surely because there’s _no_ way back now, “go away.”

“…But-”

“ _Go_.”

…He does say.

”You loved me once,” Cassius whispers, drawing his hand back one final time and inevitably fading away.


End file.
